The Kitchn Archive: Jan 2020

It's the ultimate party appetizer.

On cold, dreary, winter weeknights, you need the power of carbs and comfort food.

Did you know that you can make homemade biscuits from scratch with only two ingredients? And no, they don’t involve Bisquick.We discovered this old recipe while searching for a very, very quick dinner bread. We had just about half an hour, and we had forgotten to start a loaf of No-Knead the night before. We were browsing through AllRecipes, and this recipe for two-ingredient biscuits came up very highly ranked. We were skeptical: how good could they possibly be?

I try to be organized and prepared in the kitchen, but despite my best efforts, I can be a little scattered sometimes. When I hosted an Easter brunch this past weekend, I changed the menu several times during my preparations and ended up forgetting a few ingredients at the store. With my budget spent and time running out, I was determined not to make another trip. Luckily, as I made do, I stumbled upon a great recipe that I can’t wait to make again.

Sometimes you just need a biscuit. One that’s warm from the oven and pillow-soft in the middle. These particular scruffy-looking biscuits have become a recent obsession of mine, owing in great part to the fact that they’re incredibly easy to throw together. They’re also studded with bits of smoky bacon and flavored with sharp cheddar cheese – who can resist that?This recipe is based on our favorite Buttermilk Biscuit recipe.

This week we’re turning away from all the holiday sweets to cook up some classic winter comfort food — food that is a little indulgent, perhaps, but nourishing nonetheless. And I couldn’t let the week go by without looking back at one of my favorite biscuit-y breads from childhood: Butter dips! Have you ever made these ultra-quick, ultra-easy biscuits? They’re cloudlike and fluffy, with golden bottoms from baking in a pool of butter. Heavenly!

What do our fellow bloggers, writers, and online friends eat, first thing in the morning? We are asking some friends to share their favorite morning nourishment with us. I will cook and eat it too, and bring you their thoughts on what to eat first thing in the morning. Here’s Leigh from Marvelous Kiddo.Leigh authors a beautiful blog, Marvelous Kiddo, which focuses on motherhood, home births and family life. She lives in Manhattan but is a Southerner at heart.

As a Southerner, I’ve eaten a lot of biscuits in my life. Whether homemade or frozen or from-the-can, I don’t usually discriminate. Unfortunately the ones I make from scratch never seem to live up to my expectations of the perfect biscuit. But what is the perfect biscuit you ask? The Cracker Barrel biscuit of course! Yes, I admit that my perfect biscuit comes from a restaurant chain that dots the highways throughout the southern states.

What do our fellow bloggers, writers, and online friends eat, first thing in the morning? We are asking some friends to share their favorite morning nourishment with us. I will cook and eat it too, and bring you their thoughts on what to eat first thing in the morning. I thought I wasn’t a gravy person (for shame, my Southern ancestors would scoff at me!), until I met Jean and Jackson’s very special recipe. Now I’m unsure if I can eat a bare biscuit ever again!

I’m afraid that I haven’t been very diligent with my breakfast-making lately. I feel that breakfast is the trickiest meal in the summertime. I don’t want the hot comfort foods of winter and fall (steaming scrambled eggs, porridge of all sorts). But my cold breakfasts of yogurt and fruit can get old in their endless repetition. And yet — baking? In this heat?

I first came across “Aunt Cleo’s Chicken Pie” while digging through my fiancé’s tattered purple recipe folder, filled to the brim with handwritten index cards that his mother, Tina, had originally sent with him to college. We were only in the beginning phases of dating when I rummaged through the file, but I figured out pretty early that he was a sucker for his mom’s home cooking.

Classic buttermilk biscuits are a staple in my household. Quick, easy, and light as a feather, they can be served for breakfast, lunch, tea, dinner and even dessert! The technique is simple (hint: freeze the butter and use a light touch) but the results are spectacular. I’ve been making these buttermilk biscuits for over 20 years now. They’re so much a part of who I am that I can almost go all grandma-style and make them without measuring!

I’m declaring this cobbler the Recipe of Summer. It take those pints of cherry tomatoes that you can’t help bringing home from the farmers market and transforms them into silky, oh-so-tender bites. Plus, you know, cheddar biscuits. Trust me: It’s worth turning on the oven for this one. Make sure your cast iron skillet is well-seasoned for this recipe. Tomatoes are acidic, and they can dissolve the seasoning somewhat.

Crumble, crisp, cobbler, pie — which has your heart? I’m a cobbler girl myself; I love biscuits and there’s never quite enough biscuit to satisfy me. So this simple dessert is for me and all the rest of us who like a little fruit with our biscuits. Think of it as a cross between a shortcake and a cobbler — warm biscuits, baked right on top of fresh, juicy peaches, topped with a spoonful of whipped cream. When it comes to summer desserts, this is exactly what I want.

Every cook needs a foolproof biscuit recipe, and this version proves to be just that, along with a welcome addition of zesty fresh herbs and savory black pepper. Greek yogurt subs in for more traditional buttermilk, providing an airy texture and a oh-so-subtle tang. These delightful biscuits are easy enough for a weeknight meal, but impressive enough for dinner with friends!

In the past, I’ve had a troubled relationship with biscuits. My favorite baked good seemed just beyond my reach. Until now. Folks, you were tempted by the photos of Piper Davis making these jam-filled biscuits, “jammers,” during her kitchen tour a while back and now I’m bringing you her pitch-perfect recipe. Your world will be forever changed for the better!

Nothing beats the smell of homemade biscuits — the aromas of toasty butter and cheese oozing out of the oven make your home smell amazing. Aside from being quick and easy to prepare, biscuits can be made with a variety of ingredients and are the perfect weeknight alternative to dinner rolls. Your cast iron skillet replaces the cookie sheet — carry it to the table and let the pan keep the biscuits warm while you serve dinner.

These simple cream biscuits are a take on the ever-delicious and classic buttermilk biscuits. And just as you’d expect with any biscuit, these are slightly crisp on the outside and pillow-soft on the inside. But what really makes them my go-to biscuit recipe on weeknights is the fact that from start to finish, these cream-based biscuits (no butter!) only take around 15 minutes to make.

Have you ever had an angel biscuit? We’ve talked about them before. They are simple, airy biscuits that include yeast, baking powder, and baking soda. They may be the perfect dinner roll, with the light lift of a yeast roll, and the rich, tender crumb of a biscuit. Also? They are foolproof, easy to make, and perfect for making ahead of time.

Mushrooms duxelle is just a fancy French term that refers to sautéeing finely chopped mushrooms, onions, and herbs for a long time until they form a paste-like texture. The creamy mushrooms are delicious when spread over crusty bread. But an even better use is to add some sour cream and make a sumptuous gravy to pour over a warm, buttery biscuit.

Biscuits are notoriously fussy. Good ones, at least! This recipe combines the best traits of the temperamental (but ever-loved) butter biscuit and the cream biscuit. The flavor is clean and milky, the tops are crisped and buttery, and the crumb is oh-so-delicate. You do still have to be careful not to overmix at two important points while making this biscuit: when adding the butter and cream cheese, and especially when adding the liquid. This recipe has very little liquid.

Fried chicken on its own? Perfection. Fried chicken and waffles? Double perfection, which means fried chicken on a biscuit dripping with honey takes things to a whole new level. We’re taking this sandwich to weeknight status with shallow-fried chicken cutlets and the option to make or buy the biscuits — dealer’s choice. Frying big pieces of bone-in chicken is a bit of a daunting task, so this route is much easier.

Just short of eating a fruit by hand, a summer cobbler is on the short list of stunningly simple desserts. In this rendition, blueberries are cooked with both lemon and orange zest, and lightly spiced with nutmeg before being topped with fluffy whole-wheat biscuits. While this cobbler (or any cobbler, really) is a delicious after-dinner treat, something about the combination of whole-wheat biscuits and blueberries makes this feel distinctly appropriate for breakfast.

Dinner is always infinitely more exciting when there are biscuits. Flaky, buttermilk, or drop, I don’t really care — just bring home the biscuits! Taking the time to work with cold butter and roll and cut out the dough isn’t something I always have time for, especially on a weeknight, but this is the easiest from-scratch biscuit recipe you’ll ever make. It calls for just two simple ingredients, no rolling or cutting, and just a few minutes of your time.

This is the kind of comfort mid-winter dinners beg for.

A perfect mess of Southern greens, thanks to the rule of three, with biscuits from a grand dame of Southern cooking to mop up the potlikker.

This play on classic cream biscuits gets a fresh upgrade with help from sunny citrus and a finishing touch of coarse sugar. They skew slightly sweet, making for tender, pillowy biscuits that instantly feel a little bit more fancy. I love them with a spread of jam in the morning, or piled high with fruit and cream for dessert. Of all the biscuit variations out there (and there are a lot), cream biscuits are my absolute favorite.

“Biscuit-topped” is one of my favorite word combinations. In cookbooks, it is the friend I’m always delighted to run into. Oh, hi there, are you a hearty stew plush with grounding root vegetables and maybe handfuls of tender slow-cooked chicken, all hanging out under a blanket of warm biscuits? Let’s be friends. Four years ago, I stumbled into an accidental tradition.

These cheddar bacon biscuits put all others to shame.

What recipes do you know by heart? I can tick off a few key recipes that are so automatic to me that I can make them without thinking. This is one of them: the most glorious and easy drop biscuits that bake up cloud-fluffy and butter-crisp in a cast iron skillet. They bake in 12 minutes flat, may I add. This is perfectly reasonable to do on a weeknight when you want a homemade touch with soup from the grocery hot bar, or on a weekend morning for a jam-smeared treat with your omelet.

Easy enough for a weekday morning.

This is not your mama's chicken pot pie.

It's just as frothy as a latte but without the carbs.

Any one of these eight pull-apart breads is a delicious and portable dish to bring to your Super Bowl potluck.

This is exactly what you want to curl up to on a cold winter night.

I mean, it couldn't be *that* hard, could it?

This incredibly easy method is the secret to foolproof hard boiled eggs.

Everyone is OBSESSED with the caramelized garlic tart!